What began as a garden
blossomed into catastrophic waste;
destruction of monumental proportions.
Fields of flowers and trees
confiscated by our fathers' fathers
grew into battlefields for our children
consuming soul after soul.
Highways of death trace
through sand and sea
mapping disastrous progress to ravage
generations of hearts and minds.
From stacking stones and carving tools
to stacking anything that once carried a pulse
Assaulting from the sky, penetrating space
haunting the land
Striving to desecrate with
unmatched timing
Killing more and killing faster
than those before us.
Freedom imprisoned as it becomes
housed within the ruins
chained to the shadows of a recurring history
from which we will never learn.
This smoldering wasteland that was once our garden
is but scattered ashes of a forgotten time
Soil rotten from feasting upon our devastation
and the carcasses abandoned by free will.
To think humans made this place.
Lani Hankins is a former Army female engagement team member and a veteran of Afghanistan. Follow her here. Listen to the Savage Wonder episode with her here.
She blogs and podcasts at Kruse Corner.
Bunny: Poems About Surviving Military Life by Lani Hankins
Bottled Away: Confessions of a Struggling Veteran by Lani Hankins
The Gaslit Heart: A Story of Service and Survival by Lani Hankins
Eased Pain: Poems About Surviving Domestic Violence by Lani Hankins
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